I will have a longer feature on Tyreke Evans and Devin Ebanks and the possibility of them teaming up at Memphis coming out soon, but here are some choice quotes from the two five-star talents on the New Jersey schools.
Both Evans, who on Wednesday committed to Memphis on national television, and Ebanks, who will decide between Memphis, West Virginia, Rutgers, Texas and possibly Georgia Tech, are in New York for Saturday night’s Jordan Brand Classic at Madison Square Garden.
The 6-5 Evans ultimately chose Memphis over Villanova and Texas, but at one point he was also considering Seton Hall and visited head coach Bobby Gonzalez on campus.
“My friend MIchael Glover, he’s like my best friend, I played high school basketball with him (at American Christian) so he talked to me a lot about going there so they was in my mind,” Evans said Thursday at Jordan practice in New York.
Asked if Glover, who was declared ineligible this past year by the NCAA, will be eligible to play next year in South Orange, Evans said he would.
“Yes, he definitely will be eligible next year, I wish the best of luck to him,” Evans said.
It remains to be seen if that will actually happen. If it does, it would be a tremendous boost to Gonzalez’s program, which is desperately in need of quality frontcourt players. The trio of Mike Davis, Augustine Okosun and John Garcia wasn’t exactly McHale, Parrish and Bird.
The 6-8 Ebanks, meanwhile, has visited West Virginia and will still visit Texas, Rutgers and Memphis, and possibly Georgia Tech. He de-committed from Indiana in the wake of the Kelvin Sampson recruiting violations scandal.
As for this thoughts on playing at Rutgers, which he will visit the weekend of May 2, Ebanks said: “I like Rutgers, too, that’s why we’re taking visits.”
Rutgers is bringing in a recruiting class of Mike Rosario, Christian Morris and Pat Jackson, and possibly Greg Echenique. The Scarlet Knights are also in the hunt for 6-7 Florida transfer Jonathan Mitchell (who played with RU freshman Mike Coburn at Mount Vernon but has not yet committed to RU despite an Internet report to the contrary). Asked if he thought these players could help change the perception of Rutgers, Ebanks said:
“I definitely think that Rutgers is going to be probably Top 10 in the Big East and I think they’re going to be pretty good. And other kids that see that, they’re probably going to want to go there.
“I played against Mike. He can just shoot it. Christian is just a beast down low. I’ve been with Chris since 9th grade. As long as they work hard, they’ll be all right.”
Ebanks is doing an as-told-to blog for Slam that might be worth keeping an eye on….
(Photos courtesy Rivals, SHU, Brian Kelley)
